Recep Tayyip Erdogan

As Turkey’s prisoners start to stand trial, here’s some advice for Mr. Erdogan, his prosecutors, and his court journalists: If the world is to believe the Turkish government’s allegations, it’s important to pursue not just one theory, but all of them.

Erdogan has long made the changing of Turkey’s symbols a goal. The latest symbolic watershed involves the military, and it shows how Erdogan has continued to transform the country in the year since he seized upon the abortive coup to effectively rule by decree.

How ironic it is that when some elements in the military moved last year to force the removal of the president, both the coup plotters and the president were equally illegitimate in the eyes of the law.

It’s all well and good for NATO to talk about Turkey’s military with all the diplomatic niceties of decades past but, alas, the face of Turkish power today is increasingly SADAT rather than the Turkish army.